Vultures
by LoriDeux
Summary: Wait, they don't love you like I love you.
1. Andre Harris

_**His name escapes me**_

_**I will remember him when I see him again **_

_**But I do not define myself by the men I have known **_

_**Or by their clothes**_

_**And neither should you**_

_**-**__Koriand'r _

-.-

She remembers meeting Andre Harris when she's young, naïve, and just shy of fifteen.

He's new to her school and by simply giving him a glance-over, Jade can tell that he feels completely lost. She doesn't blame him, really, specially not given the almost tackily-grand and oppressive design that the private academy they attended contained.

In a moment of compassion, she approaches him when she notices that he's been staring at a printout of his class schedule for the past four minutes, scratching the dreads at the base of his head in confusion, and still seeming to have no idea in which direction to head.

"Kinda lost there, aren't ya?" she teases him, but he can tell she means no harm and smiles at her, instead.

He introduces himself, explaining how his family just moved to her hometown from his own, in Brooklyn, and sheepishly admitting to having a hard time getting acquainted and fitting in. He's shy (almost painfully so), but kind, and everything about him screams safety and comfort; security and peace.

He's so completely different to everyone else she knows, despite being a city boy, that all Jade wants to do is stick him in a room where she can keep him to herself, away from the corruption that they all inevitably fell to.

He makes her feel balanced, and all they are is friends.

It's not until more than six weeks later he musters enough courage to ask her out on a date.

He mumbles his question more than anything, stuttering over himself and almost guiltily staring at the floor while expecting her rejection. It makes her feel a special kind of tingle right below her ribcage to witness how much she means to him; how seriously this boy with the beautiful and innocent soul wants to be with her, and she accepts without a second of doubt and a scoffed, "took you long enough."

After a month of long walks through the park and enough hot chocolates to satisfy even the most relentless of children, she becomes his girlfriend.

Everything feels perfect.

Because Andre stands by her in every moment that she needs him, without any sort of pause or hesitation. He pushes her to resume her piano lessons, more often than not appointing himself as her instructor. He reminds her to finish her homework and studies with her on the weekends and during breaks. When he turns sixteen and a half he gets his first car and he's always waiting outside her door on weekday mornings with a smile and moderate cup of tea (even though he knows for a fact she'd rather have a large coffee, with two sugars and no cream, obviously) because it's good for her and he wants her to be happy.

He takes her home to meet his grandmother, warning her about the more-than-likely screams she'll be submitted to, but caring enough to want the woman to like her.

"You don't have to," she'd tried to tell him, half-scared out of her mind that the woman would hate her, and fully terrified he'd leave her if she did.

"I know," he replied, squeezing her fingers before pulling her in for a hug. "But I want to. My grandma, she means the world to me. She was my guide, before she lost her mind, and now I get to be hers." He paused. "You and her are everything I've got."

He doesn't judge her when she starts to cry.

He's okay with the emotional stuff. He understands that she's a teenage girl and that sometimes she wakes up angry at the world and other times a single gesture is enough to make her lose her mind. He tells her that he knows all the best things in life don't come easy, and that it'll take more than a harsh word or a rude shove for her to get rid of him.

Jade's not sure how in the world he's become so patient and understanding, but she thinks it must be the musician in him. The one he hides from the world, but she gets to see.

So often, and in so many ways.

Her favorite has to be when he writes her pretty songs and leaves them in her locker for her to find on random early mornings, though. They're always about a beautiful girl who can light up the world and is free and independent and brave with a heart of gold. They describe smiles that are sincere and eyes that sparkle true with love.

They make her smile. _He_ makes her smile.

He's sweet and loyal and so very _warm_, and it makes her feel like she's finally found a missing piece of her to call home. The part that makes her feel complete.

Andre never lets go of her hand, even when her nails dig into the skin of his palms and she just wants him to give in.

He's the first boy Jade ever really loves. The first one that matters.

And it's insane but she's seventeen and all she can think about is how she loves him and how she wants to marry him and everything else in her life can gladly take a backseat as long as she gets to keep this boy who loves her and makes her feel safe and loved and cherished forever.

But then her parents get a divorce.

Her father has a mistress. Her father has a seven year-old _son_ with his mistress. Suddenly, Jade realizes that she has a brother; _half_-brother, as her mother so eloquently stresses while she scrambles to keep up appearances.

Jade feels angry and betrayed and everyone around her pushes her to bury the new emotions running through her body deep inside her heart. She's reminded of how she's an Anders, too, not just a West, and how it's her responsibility and duty to hold her head high and remind everyone who she is and where she belongs. She knows she'll be devour by her world if she doesn't, and _her_ family will always be second-to-none.

Because she's still a good girl, she tries.

She tries, pushing and shoving everything until she feels like she's suffocating.

It's a pretense that she gets used to, this persona that is strong and cold and hardened. She likes it; it makes her feel guarded. It doesn't take her long to notice how quickly others will quiver in fear if she makes just the right comment or arches her eyebrows in a certain way. People stop talking the moment she walks into a room, and if they were speaking of her, none of them are brave enough to admit it.

She starts writing a lot.

Jade thinks it's a suitable medium. She gets the chance to express everything she feels without having to be scared of someone finding out her secrets and using them against her. Nobody cares how hurt or sad or angry her words are, or that she can spend hours sitting isolated from the world without feeling alone.

Except Andre.

Because he's not a quiet person by nature. He likes rhythms and music and noise and inspiration. He likes to be out in the sunlight by the beach or walking in a park or watching street performers and joining in.

"Come with me," he pleads one night, more than three months after her whole world flips around, grabbing onto her hand and pressing a kiss to her lips.

She pulls away, and he doesn't miss the way her arms skillfully slip out of his and wrap around herself. "Not right now, I've got stuff to do."

He furrows his eyebrows, dropping his gaze from hers and sighing in defeat before walking away with his hands stuffed inside his pockets.

The guilt that floods her over the joy she feels when he walks away to leave her alone is almost devastating.

Jade finds a new song in her locker the next morning. It's about a girl who lights up the world with her smile and is beautiful and brave and kind. It breaks her heart. Because it's a love letter from her boyfriend to the girl used to be. And although a part of her wants to find him and tell him she loves him and that she wants to be with him and to please forgive her for being so distant and mean, an overwhelming part of her is just angry. Furious.

She isn't the girl he wants back, and she doesn't _want_ to be _her_ either.

Jade can't comprehend why he won't assimilate that she's not that person anymore. And if he truly loved her, shouldn't he love this new side of her as well? Wasn't that what love was about? Growing and changing and accepting? Rather than just expecting the person you met at fifteen to stay the same for the rest of their lives?

Shouldn't the fact that her whole life was a lie be a reasonable excuse for her personality to change? For her to grow into who _she_ wants to be, or who she _needs_ to be?

She doesn't know.

All she knows is that doesn't want to smile anymore. She can't, and she won't.

And he can't force her to.

So she skips class for the rest of the day. She drives out to the only decent music store by the edge of town and dumps her bag on one of the empty tables before making her way to the Classic Rock section.

"Honestly, you look more like a Beatles kind of girl to me."

She snaps her eyes up to meet the cocky grin staring at her and a frown forms on her face. "Obviously, you don't know me very well."

"Actually, I think I know you just fine."

"Excuse me," she scoffs, arching an eyebrow. "but you don't know me."

He laughs. "We go back to when you were in pigtails. Should I be shocked or hurt that you don't remember me?"

Jade narrows her eyes at him, forcing her memory to focus on him and try to remember what the hell he was talking about. Light skin, with black hair and blue eyes. Tall. Well-built. Too confident for his own good. It was his expression though. The glint of mischief and trouble and danger. The way the edges of his lips angle in just the right position for a perfected smirk that is both arrogant and playful to spread across his face.

A light goes off, and Jade groans as she remembers exactly who he is.

"Ryder Daniels," she declares, before laughing. "The last time I saw you I was nine years old and you were wearing glasses and had just gotten your braces put in."

He cringes. "Yeah, let's not talk about that."

"Consider it payback for the 'pigtails' comment."

"Well, you've certainly don't got those now," he winks at her, a crooked smile on his lips, and she doesn't miss the way his eyes scan her body, spending more time on her chest and hips than he should before he licks his lips. "Tell me what else has changed, because you're not the little girl I left behind at all."

"God, you have no idea," she blurts out, and the emotion that washes over her out of that fact is so joyful and pure that it makes her want to cry. Because it's true.

He doesn't know her, and he doesn't pretend to, either.

It's liberation and freedom.

He has no expectations of her; no preconceived idea of who she's supposed to be. All he has of her are memories of a nine year-old version of herself who used to cry when he'd put dirt and leaves into her French braid while they were in his backyard. He's not expecting her to be sweet and kind and strong and perfect, but he's interested anyways. She's been around enough boys to know what they think about when they're near her, and Ryder is no exception.

"How about I take you out for a coffee and you start letting me find out?"

They both know what he's offering is not just a hot drink and friendly banter while they reminiscence over the good ol' times.

Jade stops for a moment, closing her eyes. She thinks about Andre and his song and his love that was sweet and pure and honest. She thinks about the way he made her feel and how all she really had to do was try to go back to what she was and who he fell in love with to feel all of that again. She remembers the meticulous plan she had for her life with him, back when she still believed in True Love and Happily Ever After and how if anyone could ever be Prince Charming in real life, it would be Andre Harris. She reminds herself that if she was willing to give up her fight and just give in and go back she could still have it all and Andre would never let go of her hand.

"Two sugars, no cream. And you're buying," Jade finally replies, smiling as she opens her eyes.


	2. Ryder Daniels

_**Alice was a poser**_

_**The kind who'd take her clothes off**_

_**And sit in a room full of frozen faces.**_

_**I heard she went to find God **_

_**In the Indian sub-continent **_

_**It's mad she had to go so far.**_

_-The Buffseeds _

He's a different kind of man.

_Man_, perhaps, being the key word.

He's almost four years older than her, which may seem like nothing in an overall manner, but really made up an entire world of differences between them.

He drives a shiny black and silver motorcycle, unashamedly revving its almost obnoxiously loud engine down the quiet and peaceful residential streets they lived in. He winks at pretty girls with his much too-blue eyes and smirks at everyone else with a face full of arrogance and superiority. He's confident and self-assured and for some absurd reason his cocky attitude doesn't repel her.

It's actually one of the things she likes the most about him.

A part of her, a ridiculous and stupid and naïve one, wishes for the day that she could feel that way.

She dreams and fantasizes of the day when her determination won't falter; when making a decision won't feel and be life-altering and when she'll finally allow herself to follow the flow and just _not worry_ about every tiny consequence that may come with it.

She wants to be free.

Free to live her life and go out and explore and learn and make mistakes and not have to worry about what people will say or think about her. She wants to paint in Paris and write a novel in a countryside cottage in London or Wilshire and go diving in the crystal-clear waters of Mexico with a sea of neon-colored fishes. She wants to dance until she's breathless in Spain and go hiking in the picturesque landscape that is Canada and she wants to pray in India's gorgeous and spiritual temples to a God she may or may not believe in.

She doesn't want to be home.

And she can't bring herself to leave either.

(She doesn't have the guts to.)

But then there's Ryder Daniels.

Ryder, who does what he wants, whenever the Hell he wants. Who's travelled across the country and who fills her mind with stories and anecdotes of all he's seen and done and who sparks her curiosity in a way that leaves her restless and itching for adventure.

(He knows so much more than she could ever learn from books or on her own.)

Ryder, who offers her the world on a silver platter.

(If only she could jump on his motorcycle and not let go.)

Ryder, who, with his leather jacket and warm embrace, feels like everything she used to love about home.

Maybe that's what led to her current predicament.

She can blame the two bottles of red wine they drank that night, which are currently littering the floor and quite possibly staining the expensive and luxurious peach carpet. Or maybe it was the thrill of walking under bright city lights when it should be pitch black, her shoes long-ago discarded, after spending the majority of the night dancing and kissing in a club with music so loud that it made her heart skip a couple of beats.

Perhaps it was the way he'd looked at her while she laughed at him after he'd stumbled against one of the many tables in their suite, with his usually sky-blue eyes blown wide and dark and full of longing and passion and desire that had made her lower belly tingle and her breath hitch. All she could think about is how nobody else had ever looked at her that way; as if she were _everything_.

He made her feel wanted; _needed_.

So, of all of her options, which one could she declare guilty of her loss of control?

All of the above, or none? She can't be sure.

What she does know is that she's lying naked on cotton white sheets inside of a hotel room thousands of miles away from home. There's an arm wrapped around her waist and she just hopes that he doesn't try to hold her any tighter because the ache between her legs alone is enough to make her want to scream in frustration and anger and regret. His head rests on her shoulder and his soft black hair sticks to her neck and a big part of her just wants him to _move away_.

Years of promising herself she'd wait until she was absolutely sure and of toying with the idea of waiting until her wedding night are thrown out the window, wrapped up in stained sheets and torn sleeves that don't belong to her. Jade closes her eyes, takes a breath, and tries to process the fact that she has just lost her virginity to a man she barely knows. If she has learned anything about Ryder in the past two weeks they've spent together since she left her home with him, it's that he's not the same boy she used to know.

He's a man now. A man who has lived and experienced things she doesn't know. He's had girlfriends and lovers and he has expectations and needs that he won't tell her, more than likely to avoid pressuring her, but that she can see when he looks at her a certain way. He's not used to little virginal girls with rose-tinted glasses who want a relationship and romance and _stability_ from him. He's twenty-one and he's an adult and he's a man and he wants more.

He's a man she doesn't love, and who doesn't love her.

But she likes to believe he cares.

_Needs_ to believe it.

Because there has to be something there, underneath the simple lust and longing; something that pulls them closer together, even if it isn't Love. It's the familiarity and comfort and passion that simmers everywhere his fingers touch, and the same thing that keeps her in place beside him on that bed instead of quietly slipping out of his embrace to catch the first flight back home. She knows she can still do it; can still disregard the last two weeks as a vain whim and wipe them off her mind and all she has to do is run and the whole deal would be done and forgotten. She knows all of that.

"How are you holding up?"

His voice is a low rasp, and she thanks God that he's awake and has finally moved his arm off her lower stomach, relieving some of the pressure that made her feel so uncomfortable. Jade notices that his eyes, while still sleep-filled and hazy, have returned to their usual blue hue, and his always-impeccable hair is laying flop across his forehead, making him appear younger and somehow carefree.

"I'm fine," she lies, and she praises herself for sounding more confident and flippant than she's ever felt, and she thinks that maybe he believes her until he starts shifting on their bed and his palm accidently lands on her stomach when he loses his grip on the sheets and she's cringing as she lets out a yelp that must sound so pathetic it makes her cringe.

"Oh, shit, I'm so sorry," he apologizes, and then he's sitting up and turning on the lamp on the nightstand and pulling the sheet off of her so he can scan her body for injuries and she can tell the exact moment he notices the red stains on her inner thighs because his whole body tenses and his eyes widen and he lets out a curse that she honestly hopes wasn't directed at her.

"Dammit, Jade, why didn't you tell me?" he demands, and she glares at him and is about to begin showing him just how offended she is by his stupid insensitivity until she realizes that he's not angry at _her_, but with himself. The look in his eyes borders dangerously close to bearing the same sting of betrayal she's felt before, but she knows what's coursing through him is guilt at the thought of having hurt her.

"I didn't want it to change anything," is as much as she's willing to admit. Because, _no_. She refuses to tell him the whole truth. Refuses to confess just how afraid she was that he would lose interest in her if she were to tell him just how much of a child she still was in some aspects. She likes that he desired her; relished in the feeling that grew in the pit of her stomach when he watched her and treated her like a woman who was mature and independent and capable of making her own choices, both emotionally and physically.

He stares at her, eyebrows furrowed and creases appearing on the corners of his eyes before muttering a "hold on" and slipping out from underneath the covers and heading towards the bathroom. Panic fills her when she hears the faucet running and all she can think about is how he can't wait to wash her off his body and she's such an idiot because everybody warned her that this was exactly what would happen and she'd just refused to listen and she's such a little fool.

But then he's coming right back with a towel hanging firmly on his waist and another one for her and Ryder is wrapping it around her body before he lifts her into his arms and he's holding her close and he doesn't let her go until they're both sitting inside the tub with the deliciously warm water that reaches her shoulders and she thinks she might cry because he got even the scent of her bubble bath right. Her muscles begin to relax and the pain that had felt almost unbearable before is now being replaced by a simple throb that, while uncomfortable, feels more like the soreness she'd experienced after a demanding exercise.

And, although he's silent, he's kept his hands busy, rubbing and soothing the tension that had built on her shoulders and hips and outer thighs. Jade's grateful that he kept the towels between them, because even though it seems ridiculous given their night's activities, his presence makes her heart ache in a way that isn't bad.

After the sex had been done and he'd been as physically close to her as he could be, after he'd literally been _inside_ of her and once he'd fallen asleep, she'd wanted nothing more than for him to be as far away from her as possible. She'd wanted to be alone and in peace to catch her breath and freak out and scream. Instead, she was here, and he's touching her without intent and he's holding her but it's not suffocating or overwhelming and she can feel his breath as it hits the base of her neck like a perfect little reminder that _he's still there _and all she can think about is how she's not sure of anything with him except that he understands her and knows what she really needs even when she doesn't and he somehow might turn out to be her greatest friend.

Later, after the water has turned cold and her fingertips have begun to prune, they're both back under the covers and she smiles when he doesn't move away when she presses her freezing toes against his shins. "I thought you wouldn't want anything to do with me anymore," she confesses, feeling that she at least owed him a pelt of honesty.

"Sweetheart," he scoffs, but his voice is lighter now, as if he was somehow aware that she's still naked and feeling vulnerable and right then was not the moment to dwell into her inner-most secrets. "There's really not much that could have kept me away from you, even before tonight. I just wish I had known so I could have helped you through it better."

"Better?" she questions, arching an eyebrow and trying to stop her body from tensing and recoiling at the memory of the discomfort and pain her first time had brought her. She thinks he must have noticed, because instead of one of his usually cocky grins, she's met by a smile and a soft touch to the base of her neck.

"It can get so much better, Jade," he promises, and then he's kissing her again and the rush and impatience from earlier is gone and his tongue is in her mouth and licking along her lips and his fingers are caressing the underside of her breasts and brushing against her ribs. He settles between her legs but doesn't push for more, even after she wraps her legs around his waist, choosing instead to run his hands up and down their length and she thinks she's never felt anything more erotic in her life.

He stops them before things can get too out of hand, afraid of hurting her if they get too far, and it's all the proof she needs to know in her heart that what she's doing with him, regardless of the circumstances, can only be right.

Life for Jade West gets intense after that night.

Every day with Ryder is an adventure filled with new discoveries.

He takes her to his favorite places around the country; little hidden spots he's found that hold a special place in his heart. She teases him when he shows up at their hotel of the week with a humongous truck that he's bought solely to avoid leaving behind his precious bike when she reminds him that they actually _do_ need more than what they can carry on their backs. Her favorite part might possibly be when he lets her drive, even though his hand is always tightly grasped on the door and he constantly accuses her of driving like a maniac, just because he knows it makes her happy to feel like she's in control of her destiny when they're out in the open road.

They backpack through Europe and she learns and experiences culture's she'd only read about in books before and she gets to dance in the rain and dive off of cliffs and do just about anything that her heart desires. Ryder gives her a camera for her 18th birthday, just a few weeks after they'd first set off together, and Jade never misses a chance to snap pictures of all she sees and everything they do.

But, regardless of how much she enjoys and loves everything he's taught her about the world and every opportunity he's given her and that they've taken together, what she's most grateful for is what he's helped her learn about herself.

From solidifying her beliefs, right down to exploring her sexuality and determining what she wants out of her life, she finally gets the chance to feel free.

To _be_ free.

And she owes it all to him.

Little by little, she starts to fall in love.

By the time she turns nineteen, she knows, more than anything else, that he's The One.


End file.
